Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl

by Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl (retail) (epub)

  He sees me and asks, How’d it go?

  I genuinely felt happy to hear Mark’s voice, I say.

  How do you feel now?

  I join him and Bishop on the couch.

  A little frustrated, I tell Chris. I was so happy to hear his voice that I couldn’t feel angry.

  That’s okay, he says.

  But I’m supposed to be angry.

  Feel how you feel, Chris says. It’s okay.

  Nina calls, asks how my conversation with Mark went.

  He said yes, I tell her.

  How do you feel?

  I feel like I have a book now.

  And then we laugh, because that’s not a feeling.

  Relieved, I add. I feel relieved.

  The next morning, I have an email from Mark. It’s time-stamped 12:34 AM, three hours after we hung up.

  Jeannie,

  First, I want to stress again how wonderful it was to talk with you again, and how relieved (if confused) I am that you don’t hate me, as I’ve long assumed that you deservedly must.

  I do worry that in talking about all this with you I’m actually just seeking my own—wholly unearned—catharsis, and I urge you to push back when (as I’m sure I will) I offer explanations designed to shield myself from responsibility. Do not for an instant let me push my actions off on to some aspect of your own behavior, and certainly don’t engage in such mental gymnastics on my behalf. These kinds of rationalizations are beneath us both.

  Know, going in to this, that I am unlikely to ever be able to offer you a satisfying explanation for my actions, because I don’t really understand them myself. Yes, I was drunk and lonely and horny and depressed and yes you were drunk and alone and vulnerable but these are rationalizations only. You and I surely have been all of those things before and since, yet this happened just the once.

  Those reservations aside, I look forward to our next talk.

  Your Friend,

  Mark

  I read the email aloud to Chris.

  Isn’t that nice? I ask Chris. I mean, he’s trying.

  He’s trying, Chris says.

  But?

  I just don’t like the guy, Chris says.

  I almost ask Chris to please, please critique the email, but I should figure this out on my own.

  Or: I could ask Sarah.

  I call Sarah, read the email aloud to her, ask her if I’m being naive.

  He’s telling you what to do, Sarah says.

  You mean the mental gymnastics part?

  Yeah. It’s patronizing. Also, he’s equalizing your experiences. That part about These kinds of rationalizations are beneath us both. It’s way creepy and manipulative, whether consciously or not. Also, that part about how he was drunk and lonely and horny, and you were drunk and alone and vulnerable.

  And I really hate the word horny, I tell her.

  This sentence bothers me the most: You and I surely have been all of those things before and since, yet this happened just the once.

  I share the email with my editor, and she focuses on that line.

  But this didn’t just happen to you once, she says. He assumes in all the times before and after it didn’t happen to you again. But it did and it does for a lot of women. Is this an assumption connected to the idea of control and who has it?

  If Mark meant to add between us, as in: You and I surely have been all of those things before and since, yet this happened just the once between us, then there’s still a problem. I was drunk and alone with Mark only once. During our phone conversation, I mentioned that I’d never been drunk before, and—as I recall—he said he didn’t know that. I also told him about the friend who raped me in New York. So why the surely? Was he even listening to me? A few months after the assault, I did drink around him. We were at a dive bar three blocks from my mom’s house. Jake and Garrett were with us. Long Islands cost less than five dollars. I couldn’t believe the prices.

  It’s like a garage sale in here, I told the guys.

  Garrett, our designated driver, took me to my mom’s house. He and Jake helped me out of Garrett’s car.

  Not you, I told Mark.

  Or maybe I only thought it.

  Mark waited in the car while our friends helped me into the house.

  By drinking near Mark, maybe I was testing him.

  Maybe I was testing myself.

  I told myself: If he tries it again, I’ll fight back.

  I’m surprised by how Mark ended his email: Your Friend.

  For two days now, a flashing line on my phone’s screen has indicated that the conversation is being processed. I’m afraid to close the app or touch my phone at all. What if I accidentally delete the audio file? I never took notes. Chris researches user reviews, says that journalists have complained about this very issue, but the app is generally reliable. Chris suggests giving the recording one more day. Then we can call the help line. I wish I had his patience.

  Another day passes, and the line is still flashing. Hunkered down on the floor of my home office, surrounded by binders full of academic articles about rape, I decide to risk losing the file. I press play. Turns out: that’s all I had to do. I hurry to my desk and start transcribing.

  . . .

  ME: I hope you don’t mind my asking, but why did you decide to, I mean I’m so glad you decided to, reply.

  HIM: I felt like if you wanted to talk to me, I owed you that much. I read, actually, your book two nights ago.

  ME: Oh, you did read it.

  HIM: Yeah. I—I’m so sorry.

  ME: No, hey, listen. We’ve talked about what happened. In the interest of transparency, I’m interested in writing about what happened, about our friendship—because I did think of you as such an incredibly close friend.

  HIM: We were really close there for a while.

  ME: I was writing a bunch of great memories that I had of you and me together, and some of them could be completely incorrect, you know, because of how memory works. I just remember when I started becoming friends with you, I was at your house a lot studying with your sister, but when I would call and your brother would pick up, I remember it reaching a point where he would say, Which one do you want? [Mark laughs.] I genuinely want to understand what happened, and I’m wondering how you feel about that. I’d completely disguise your identity and change certain details and run it by you so that you could let me know if you feel too exposed. Would you be okay with my doing that?

  HIM: Yeah. Obviously I’m a little uncomfortable.

  ME: Yeah, sure. I wouldn’t want to be written about.

  HIM: If it’s something you think you want to do, I’m not going to stop you.

  I’M NOT GOING TO STOP YOU

  I thought I could transcribe the call in one go, but hearing his voice is hard. Even harder: hearing my voice, registering its reassuring tone. Leigh-Anne calls, asks how the conversation went.

  When I talked to Mark, I tell her, I immediately comforted him, told him how grateful I was that he agreed to talk to me. It didn’t feel fake when I comforted him. I even told him that I’d run the manuscript by him—for his approval.

  That’s definitely a performance of gender, she says.

  Are you disappointed in me? I ask her.

  Jeannie, I respect what you’re doing.

  I claimed that I’d change some details to protect his identity, but no way am I changing details. I’m not changing anything except for names. Do names count as details?

  Next time I talk to him, I’ll clarify that I’ll change names, leave out identifying details irrelevant to the project, and that’s all. Then he can decide whether or not to continue.

  And if he decides against answering any more questions? I’d likely still use our conversation, word for word. Why should I give up on my project because of his disapproval? Unless, legally speaking, I need his approval.

  I feel sick to my stomach. I drag my wastebasket closer to my chair.

  I implied to Mark that things between us were okay. But if
that were the case, I wouldn’t be writing this book.

  Had Mark never assaulted me, would we have stayed friends? Probably not. I don’t talk to anyone else from high school. But I wish we’d drifted apart because of distance.

  I should have told him that I recorded the call. But I will tell him. Next time. Next time I will definitely tell him. But if I tell him, what if he gets mad and withdraws his consent?

  I won’t feel good about any of this without his consent.

  When I started this project, the working title was If He Says No. But my editor says the title no longer fits. I want it to fit. I really like the title. She came up with it.

  I tell her: He could still say no. He could decide he doesn’t want to do this anymore. I could play on the concept of consent—how it can be given and taken back at any time.

  We don’t have to worry about the title now, she says. I think the right one will come along.

  Mark said he won’t stop me, but he also doesn’t want this. Does that make my project an equal and opposite reaction to the assault? Equal and Opposite, maybe? A play on Newton’s third law?

  Too boring.

  I told myself, Don’t reassure him—and then I reassured him. Don’t Reassure Him—does that work? An imperative title implies I’m giving advice. And I don’t want to give advice. Also, it’s a terrible title.

  Why did I reassure him? No, hey, listen. We’ve talked about what happened. I told myself I wouldn’t do that. Though I doubt yelling at him would have accomplished much in the way of gathering information. Still, I’m angry at myself for reassuring him before he even agreed to this project. I’d like to claim I was manipulating him, putting him at ease so that he would agree to participate, yet I slipped so easily into comforting him because his discomfort made me so uncomfortable. We used to be friends.

  But why should I get frustrated with myself for any of this? I want to feel angry at Mark.

  So let me turn to some bad memories.

  Here’s one: Earlier that night, the night he assaulted me, Mark picked me up at my mom’s house. I motioned for Mark to join me in the kitchen, where my mom was scrubbing the counters. She offered Mark a soda, and he said he was okay. He said we should be going. I wanted to linger, wanted to gauge whether she’d be okay alone. She’d been crying a lot, talking about how much she missed my dad. The year prior, he died in that same house. I don’t remember what in our conversation prompted her to tell me, At least I’ll be with your dad someday.

  Mark said, I don’t believe in an afterlife.

  My mom said she did—not in a combative way. But Mark repeated his position, insisted that an afterlife made no sense.

  My mom went in the bathroom to cry, and I glared at him.

  Why’d you have to do that? I asked him.

  He shrugged.

  That was a jerk thing to do.

  It’s what I believe, he said.

  He went out to the car, where his brother was waiting. I asked my mom if she was okay. I apologized for Mark.

  Go, she said. You should have fun with your friends.

  In the car, I told Mark, Did you really need to say that?

  I’m sick of Christians pushing their beliefs.

  She’s not a fucking missionary, I said to him. She’s a grieving widow.

  Thinking back, I can summon anger (some anger anyway) at Mark’s coldness toward my mom. But why can’t I break off some of that anger, share it with the assault?

  The assault. I haven’t described it, not in some slowed-down scene. Reconstructing it might be tough emotionally, but that’s not really why I’ve withheld the scene. Until this moment, I felt more concerned about the reader’s impressions of Mark than I did about sharing my own memories of that night. But now I feel less concerned about his likability—because he has agreed to this project, a decision that could afford him at least moderate likability among some readers. Okay, so that means I do still think about his likability. I could delete this rationale, or revise my stated motivations. But I would only be doing that in an effort to please or impress others. And I want to be honest here. Otherwise, why do this? This is a memoir, not a manifesto.

  So, the assault. First, let me set the scene. I remember posters of women in bikinis. I remember issues of Playboy and Maxim in the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom. The house belonged to Jake’s uncle, a single guy in his forties or fifties. Jake and Mark also lived there. Mark rented the basement.

  Jake’s uncle would be leaving for a business trip. But first, he wanted to show me around.

  Look at this, he told me.

  He held open a 1970s issue of Playboy.

  Back then, he said, the women didn’t wax. I like that.

  I forced a smile. Was he trying to demonstrate a progressive view about women’s body hair?

  Then my friend Amber (not her real name) arrived.

  I whispered to Amber that Jake’s uncle was a creep.

  Pretty soon, more friends arrived. All in all, though, fewer than twelve of us were there. I knew everyone there. I trusted everyone there. So I drank.

  Before I passed out, I remember saying: My dad is dead, but my newspaper advisor is still alive.

  I remember being carried down steep steps—from the living room to Mark’s basement room. Jake and Mark put me in Mark’s bed.

  I remember Mark telling Jake: I’ll wait down here with her. Make sure she’s okay.

  Jake left. When the door closed, the music upstairs disappeared. Alarm signals went off inside me. And yet I fell back asleep.

  I woke up to Mark taking off my clothes. He instructed me to be quiet. I became rigid, like an animal who senses it’s impossible to bolt.

  You’re dreaming, he said.

  He pulled my jeans off me.

  He slid my underwear to my ankles.

  He pulled up my shirt to my neck.

  He pushed up my bra.

  He told me to be quiet.

  The basement was cold. I shivered, felt numb.

  I cried, quietly, as if in public.

  Shh, he whispered, kneeling next to me. It’s just a dream.

  His fingers went inside me.

  It’s just a dream, he said.

  I remember thinking, He could hurt me. I remember thinking, He is hurting me.

  I’ve liked you for so long now, he said.

  His fingers went so deep inside me I felt dizzy.

  I felt scared.

  I felt strangely afraid of embarrassing him.

  He was my friend.

  It’s okay, he said. It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.

  He sounded like he was putting a child to sleep. I told myself this was happening to someone else.

  He took his fingers out of me and started masturbating over me.

  I briefly opened my eyes. The way his eyes fixed on nothing, he looked blind.

  After he finished, he stumbled away. I slowly sat up, looked around. He was passed out on a cot, or a couch, in the corner.

  I got dressed, ran upstairs, and found Amber.

  What happened? she asked and wiped away some of my tears.

  Mark, I said.

  I’m getting Jake, she said.

  Jake came over.

  What happened? he said.

  Mark raped her, Amber said.

  No, I said. He just took my clothes off me. He—

  He what? Jake asked.

  I couldn’t speak.

  He what? Jake repeated.

  He took off my clothes, fingered me, and told me to be quiet. Said that it was just a dream. I got scared. I didn’t stop him.

  I’ll beat the shit out of him, Jake said.

  No, I said.

  That’s still rape, Amber said.

  No, it’s not, I said.

  . . .

  ME: I’m interested in writing about us, because I want to understand, I want to believe, that it’s possible to be a good person, a really good person, who makes a mistake.

  HIM: You know, I was thin
king along similar lines, and one of the things that was hard for me after that—it changes the sort of story you can tell about yourself. Like, I thought I was somewhat good, or one of the good guys. That wasn’t a fiction that I felt I could maintain after that.

  ME: I remember blaming myself. Because I had heard you dropped out of college. And I thought, Maybe I didn’t forgive him properly.

  HIM: No, that wasn’t you. I was a mess generally. When I left college, that was a good year, year and a half, later. And I just had a breakdown. I needed to get away for a while.

  ME: Do you know what it was?

  HIM: I was just stressed out. I think we’ve talked, but I just have—especially back then—such severe anxiety and depression, and I was so isolated that it just—between that as a background, the course load at college, I just—I got to a point where I couldn’t go into the buildings. And so my work suffered. And eventually I decided it wasn’t worth it anymore. And dropped out for about a year. And then I went back and at that point it didn’t work out for me to finish the physics degree because I needed two years of a language, and I didn’t want to take two years of Spanish, and so I sort of made up an independent studies type of degree. Then I graduated in winter of ’08, just in time for the depression. So I ended up, I actually ended up working as a mechanic. I did it as something just to keep myself busy. That went on for a couple years. And then I also took a part-time job in the winter doing taxes. So yeah, I’ve been around. But then the shop went bust. So I ended up doing taxes, but I decided that if I was going to be doing taxes, I should go to accounting school, but I didn’t want to do that. So I enrolled in a graduate engineering program. And then I finished that and got cold feet. By the end of the master’s program I wasn’t really in love with the idea of being an engineer either. But somewhere, maybe my second semester of grad school, I ran into Heather [not her real name]. And she mentioned that her brother, Sam [not his real name], had a camera rental business and needed help. So I started working for him. And now I manage the shop.

  ME: I haven’t talked to Heather in I don’t know how long. I fell out of touch with people. Well, you read the book. After what happened between us, I remember running into Amber, and I was crying, and then Jake came over and I couldn’t really explain. I told them, It wasn’t as serious as you think. I never talked about it with any of our friends. Amber was the only one, sort of. And after that, Jake had invited a bunch of people to a party and included us both on the email. And I thought, Okay, maybe it wasn’t a huge deal.